


The Santiago Panic Scale

by AngelicGrace



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Panic, Pining, season 1-2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 05:56:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10870500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelicGrace/pseuds/AngelicGrace
Summary: Jake goes undercover & Amy is a mess & Rosa has to deal with emotions.





	The Santiago Panic Scale

**Author's Note:**

> i've never written for b99 before, but today's episodes were amazing and i love amy santiago more than anything else in this world?? anyway I saw this post about how Rosa knows the Santiago panic scale b/c of when Jake was undercover, and I just had to write this. It would be great if you guys comment with any constructive criticism :) thanks so much

_1._

It's been weeks since Jake went undercover, and Rosa keeps looking up every time someone walks into the precinct, like he'll just barge back in, dragging the life of the precinct back with him. It's the third time in the past hour the door has opened, and Rosa still looks up. 

Amy barrels in, looking harried. She's one minute and thirty-three seconds late (Rosa only knows that because Amy's muttering it under her breath as she nearly runs to her desk). She collapses into her chair, chest heaving.

"Damn, where's the fire, Santiago?" Terry mumbles from the other side of the bullpen, looking bemused. There's a pause, and Rosa thinks of Jake. He would tease Amy mercilessly for this. Amy looks at Terry, and Rosa can tell that she's thinking the same thing, from the way her features tighten, then smooth out. 

She looks like a mess. Her hair is loose and strangely wavy, like it had been braided and then taken out. She yawns while pulling out her paperwork, and doesn't even crack a smile at the sheer size of the stack of forms in front of her.

Rosa sighs and gets up from her chair, walking over to Amy's desk. Her boots stomp against the floor. "Hey," she snaps, too curtly.

Amy's eyes widen. 

Rosa tries again. "Hey," she mutters, a bit softer. "You okay?" Rosa's face feels tight and she's very uncomfortable and  _damn Jake for making her care about people_. 

Amy smiles tightly and runs her fingers through her hair, absentmindedly sectioning it off and starting a small braid. "I'm fine, Rosa," she replies, not quite meeting Rosa's eye. She hurriedly turns back to her paperwork. 

Rosa raises an eyebrow. "Okay," She lets the silence hang between them for a second. When Amy continues to ignore her, she turns away and walks back to her desk. 

By lunch, Amy's hair is made up of a million little braids, and she's started braiding _those_ braids together.

Rosa snaps. She strides over to Amy's desk, made furious with worry for Jake and Amy and  _God, why does she care so much_. Grabbing Amy by the wrist, she roughly pulls her to the break room. Amy sinks onto the couch. 

"Talk," Rosa orders. 

Amy looks lost. "I -" she braids her hair furiously, "-I just,"

"Words, Amy." Rosa says, slightly more gently.

"It's Jake," Amy mumbles helplessly.

Jake. Of course it's Jake. Rosa's barely slept this past week, she keeps waking up with the knife she keeps under her pillow in her hand, slashing at enemies in the dark. And it's  _Jake_ , her friend from the academy, the first white guy there to smile at her for the sake of smiling, instead of to get into her pants. It's Jake, and Rosa misses him fiercely, and he's Amy's partner. No wonder she looks lost, like all the noise in the precinct left with him (most of it did).

"Come on, Santiago. Let's get these braids out of your hair." Rosa's hands are gentle as she starts to unravel the knotted braids in Amy's hair. "I'm taking you out to lunch."

 ---

_2._

They're at lunch, tucked into a corner booth at a diner, and Amy's stopped braiding her hair. She stares blankly into space, and Rosa's never seen her like this before.

It's scary, and Rosa hates the feelings of fear and worry that sit and curdle in her stomach, like they've been there for months instead of days. Every once in awhile they rise into her throat and choke her, but she's got practice keeping her voice steady and her face blank. 

Amy's saying something under her breath. Rosa leans across the table to hear her, and Amy's whisper-singing like a robot. "It had to be you, it had to be you. I wandered around, and finally-"

Rosa snaps her fingers in front of Amy's face. "We have to order."

Amy flinches. She looks up at the waitress, who raises an eyebrow, bored but vaguely concerned. "I'll have what she's having." She goes back to singing. 

"Amy,"  Rosa's voice dips low. "Snap out of it," she hisses. 

Amy sings. 

" _Amy,_ " Rosa says again, louder. The name feels ripped from her throat. She thinks she's begging, but she's not quite sure why. "Listen to me. You can't check out, okay? We need you here." She stops, closing her eyes.

"Rosa, I-"

"Charles is falling apart, and he's been crying at his  _desk._  The captain's face is blanker than usual, I didn't see Gina check her phone once yesterday, and I'm-" The words pour out of her, and it feels like more emotion than she's expressed in years, and Rosa's raw and peeled open for Amy to see. "Jake's going to be okay. We're going to be okay, but you gotta keep going." Her voice has turned into a growl, and she snaps her mouth shut, teeth clacking together, before she can do something dumb like cry. 

Rosa is quiet, and for the first time, Amy doesn't sing. She grabs Rosa's hand, and Rosa is too  _weak_ and emotional to push her away. They squeeze each other's fingers like lifelines, and don't let go until their food comes.

 ---

_3._

They're back at the precinct, walking in companionable silence. Rosa grabs Amy's wrist and gently leads her to the kitchen.

Amy looks better for a second, nearly normal, and for the first time she opens her mouth to say, "I should go back to my paperwork."

Rosa rolls her eyes, but she's smiling.  _There she is._ "Shut up, Santiago." She opens the cupboard and hands Amy one of those beat-up NYPD mugs that no one ever uses. "Drink some water or something."

Amy's eyes flash, and something snaps in her. She tightens her grip around the mug and smashes it against the ground, startling a laugh out of Rosa, who hands her another mug. They stay there until every mug has been shattered, and Rosa's laughing while Amy scrunches her nose in a mix of anger, anxiety, and horror. She throws the metal hot water kettle on the ground next, kicking it against the cabinet. It clangs as it hits the floor. The kettle keeps rolling back to Amy's waiting feet, and she kicks it again. And again. 

By the time Captain Holt comes to investigate the disturbance, the kettle is dented every which way, Rosa's smiling wider than she has in weeks, and Amy is tired, leaning against the counter in vague confusion. Her eyes widen comically when the Captain stops in front of them, hands on his hips.

" _What_ is going on here, detectives?"

\---

The next day, there's a brand new set of NYPD mugs in the kitchen, courtesy of Amy Santiago. The dented kettle remains, and no one else in the precinct ever figures out how it got to be so beat up.

But Amy starts coming into work twenty minutes early again, with her hair back in a ponytail and her pantsuit neatly pressed. There are bad days, when she and Rosa go out to lunch at the diner and sit in the corner booth for their entire break without saying a single word. And there are other days, when Rosa brings Amy to her apartment after work. They drink and find stuff to break and play loud music, trying to fill the noise vacuum that Jake left behind. 

And when Jake comes back, he brings his loudness and his laughter right back with him, and when Rosa first hears his voice coming through the precinct door (an hour late, as always), she knows that they're going to be fine.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm stcvierogers on tumblr! come yell w/ me about b99 :)


End file.
